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Last week began our new school year. Inservices never seem to be what they should, but then again, what should they be? Should they be speeches from important personnel and then a guy who spoke of Sherpas and climbing Mount Everest? Which, by the way, I’m not entirely sure of what his point was. He lost me and all I could think about was I knew he had sponsors, but he spent an enormous sum of money to climb a mountain. Maybe I just don’t get it. I just thought about all the other things that money could be used for.

The next few days were staff meetings and department meetings. I was able to meet with all but one of my middle school departments in one afternoon. I’m excited to be working with all of them and even more excited that many said they’d love for me to be in their classrooms with them. I had great conversations with several departments at the high school.

For me, I didn’t really feel like I gained enough. Apparently, my departments felt similar. They just want time to work with their colleagues – from what everyone described, they want the “unconference” or “EdCamp” model. I wish I knew that this would fly with my district staff, but I’m afraid to bring it up and then have it be a failure.

What if staff didn’t show up to where they needed to be? What if what they were doing wasn’t for student learning? What if they didn’t hold themselves accountable?

Anyone else have this for their district inservices or teacher professional development? I’d love to know how to start something like this and have it be valuable for staff and students while still holding people accountable for their actions.

Aside from that, in one week we will be handing out our first Chromebooks to students. My fingers are crossed that we won’t have too many hiccups. Keep watching to find out how that week goes!